AUTO-RESTORER FACES GRAND THEFT CHARGES.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - A former auto restorer is facing charges of stealing three vintage British sports cars that he had been paid tens of thousands of dollars to restore.

Don Randall Cook was accused of stealing 1955, 1957 and 1964 Austin Healey roadsters after he suddenly abandoned his business that he was operating out of a friend's Lancaster auto body shop.

``He disappeared, and so did the cars,'' California Highway Patrol investigator Jim Daggon said.

Accused of five counts of grand theft, Cook is free on $100,000 bail. His arraignment is scheduled for Nov. 10 in Lancaster Superior Court.

Cook, who works at a Palmdale mortgage office, did not return telephone calls.

The cars' owners reported their cars stolen in April, May and November 2002 after visiting the shop and finding Cook and their cars gone, Daggon said.

One man said he had paid Cook more than $14,000, another nearly $20,000, and the third said Cook had promised to pay him $11,000 for selling his car without permission, said Daggon.

Daggon said he found Cook working as a mortgage broker in Palmdale. Cook, said Daggon, told him that he abandoned his Healey Masters business in April 2002 after he became emotionally distraught upon the death of his 1-day-old son.

Cook told him that he believed all the vehicles he had been working on had been returned to their owners by the friend from whom he had been renting the shop space, Daggon said.

The friend said Cook disappeared, leaving unfinished vehicles and car parts, plus owing him $15,000 in back rent, according to Daggon. The friend told Daggon he contacted the owners of other vehicles left behind in the shop through paperwork he found there.

The three Austin Healey owners all said they had brought their cars to Cook in the 1990s when he operated Healey Masters in San Fernando, and that he had been slowly restoring them, in some cases because the owners wanted to spread the cost over several years, said Daggon.

Two of the owners, a Castaic resident and a San Francisco man, told Daggon that they discovered Cook had moved out of San Fernando in 2001 only when they visited his shop to see their cars.

They found out he had moved the shop to Lancaster, where one owner said he learned that Cook had sold his car to someone overseas, said Daggon. That owner, a Glendora man, said Cook signed a promissory note agreeing to pay $11,000 within six months, but he abandoned his shop two months later, said Daggon.

Daggon said anyone else who is missing a car left with Cook should call him at [phone].

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com